If London is to house us all, time to think hard outside the box

We must press former offices, more high rises and shared space into service for those who can’t afford One Hyde Park

Monday 4 March 2013 12:25 BST

Sleuths from Vanity Fair have identified the owners of many of the flats at One Hyde Park, the glass and steel construction so conveniently positioned for a quick dive into Harvey Nichols or Harrods. The actual people behind the array of imaginative corporate names that appear on the deeds do not exactly sound like the perfect neighbours. Attempting to borrow a cup of sugar from Ukraine’s richest man, a Nigerian oil billionairess or a Kazakh songstress might be a little daunting. It would also be doomed to failure, since most of these people are rarely, if ever, in residence.

They have bought flats in what glory in being the most expensive apartments in the world because they believe they constitute a good investment. On the basis that the three most important factors in the property market are “location, location, location”, they may be right. Even if the £6,000 per square foot they have paid for their apartments seems excessive , the fact is that London is one of the world’s greatest cities and it will take more than a threatened cap on bankers’ bonuses to stop the wealthy wanting to own property here.

Yet the difficulties that poses for the less wealthy are all too evident. Prices put home ownership out of reach of average earners without parents able to provide financial help onto the property ladder; private rental levels have soared in recent years and there is nowhere near enough social housing to meet the demand. London’s housing crisis is not a mere figment of pressure group hyperbole but a reality.

The obvious response is to demand a massive increase in home-building but in 2009, the Mayor’s Housing Strategy estimated that by 2031, there would be between 750,000 and 850,000 extra households in London and conventional house-building will struggle to accommodate all of those. Some more imaginative solutions will have to be employed.

The first, already being encouraged by the Government, is to turn empty office blocks into residential space. Last month it was announced that developers would not have to seek “change of use” consent to make the switch, although they would still have to comply with all building standards. Yet almost all London’s councils are seeking to exempt some or all of their territory from this loosening of the planning regulations. They argue that they do not want to change the character of commercial districts but empty office blocks do nothing to enhance an area whereas mixing housing with offices can give neighbourhoods a life that goes beyond the working week and help some local shops and restaurants to flourish.

High-rise living is not for everyone but in a city with limited acreage and heavy housing demand, it has to be an important part of the answer. Even converted office blocks do not need to emulate the grim tower blocks that so stigmatised high-rise in the wake of the brutalist architecture of the Sixties. Enlightened developers might provide cheery communal areas and a porter to watch over them. There might even be playrooms for children, although the need to keep service charges in check might mean that users of some facilities would have to pay extra for them .

The conversion of commercial space to residential should go beyond office blocks. In most areas of London, shops are closing at an unprecedented rate and turning many high streets into depressing testimony of the changes in consumer behaviour. Slaughtered by the combination of entertainment shopping, provided by prime locations such as Oxford Street and Covent Garden and the massive shopping centres such as Westfield, and convenient shopping, provided by the internet, these areas will not be revived without drastic change. Turn them into housing and they could create new communities instead of wallspace for graffiti artists.

Putting redundant space to better use will not guarantee that housing becomes instantly affordable. London’s housing standard sets a minimum gross internal area for a one-bedroom flat for two people at 50 square metres. At the price of One Hyde Park, that would cost more than £3.2 million, putting it in the “mansion” category by value. Even at a tenth of that, it would still be beyond the means of many seeking to live in London, although it would be close to the average price now paid by first-time buyers, who typically put down a deposit of £98,000.

For many people that figure is unachievable, hence the importance of social housing. The Mayor is pledged to have delivered 50,000 new affordable homes by 2015. The Government , despite protests, is pushing ahead with plans that should encourage those in social housing to move to smaller properties if they do not need the extra space, thus releasing larger properties for families who genuinely need them.

Ideas about how much space a family or an individual needs vary, however. One Ukrainian buyer at One Hyde Park had to knock together two apartments to get the £144 million pad he wanted. But others should be encouraged to rethink their attitudes towards space. In particular, Londoners rattling around in properties that have plenty of spare rooms might be encouraged to think about change. That need not mean moving. The bulk of projected growth in London households is in one-person households. There could be all sorts of advantages in some of these being accommodated in existing homes.

Already there are some successful schemes in which younger people are matched with older people who have spare rooms. The younger person agrees to provide a level of domestic help and support in return for their accommodation. When the pairing works well, it provides far more than some shopping and washing-up and begins to combat the loneliness that is such a blight on many modern lives.

Alternatively, a few elderly people might share one of their homes and pool the cost of providing the domestic and nursing care they need. It might not be The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel but it would probably be a great deal more congenial than an old people’s home.